


Mind my wicked words and tipsy topsy slurs

by heavenisalibrary



Series: Tumblr Prompt Fills [34]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Human AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-29
Updated: 2015-09-29
Packaged: 2018-04-24 01:32:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4900414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heavenisalibrary/pseuds/heavenisalibrary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He smiles at her, and it’s oddly disarming, considering she was thinking about dumping her wine on him a moment ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mind my wicked words and tipsy topsy slurs

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the tumblr prompt "river/doctor + miserable people meeting at a wedding au"

She hates weddings. They’re ridiculously antiquated events in which two people who will likely evolve into two completely different people within the decade bind themselves to one another for life despite knowing nothing about what they’ll want in the future and engage in a pointless and exorbitantly expensive ritual in which the man declares ownership over the woman and everybody acts like they’re happy for the couple while nursing their own bitterness or swallowing back warnings borne out of their own marital discord.

River might be nursing some bitterness of her own, she realizes, and takes an extra large sip of her wine. 

She supposes the reception would be nice enough if she were more than a casual acquaintance to the couple — family friend to a couple who’d fostered her when she was ten or eleven, who’d been nice enough at the time and asked her to attend — and if she’d imbibed an entire bottle of wine before arriving. As is, she just feels sort of disenchanted with the fairy lights and roses and poems on the place settings. So she drinks some more wine, ignoring the balding gentleman prattling on beside her, and leaning on the table, chin in her hand, hoping she looks drunk instead of totally derisive of and irritated by the entire ordeal.

Someone sits down beside her, shaking the table, and if her reflexes weren’t so quick, they would’ve overturned her glass of wine, too. It’s just about the only thing she cares about this evening, so she turns her head to glare as the young, floppy haired man beside her cringes, flushing.

“Sorry,” he says, “might be a bit sloshed.”

“Or just an oaf.”

“Bit of that, too.”

He smiles at her, and it’s oddly disarming, considering she was thinking about dumping her wine on him a moment ago. 

“Not big on weddings, either?” she asks instead, sipping her wine. Wouldn’t’ve been an acceptable loss, anyway.

“Not particularly,” he says, frowning. “But I do like an open bar.”

“Cheers to that,” she says, sipping her wine again. 

He tugs at his ridiculous bowtie. “I’m the Doctor.”

“Doctor who?”

“Oh, I’ve never heard that one before.”

She thinks about questioning him, or about telling him that he’s absolutely ridiculous, but his grin is infectious, and she’s had an awful lot of wine, so instead she just smiles back and says, “River Song.”

“So, River Song,” he says, “what do you hate most about weddings?”

“The romance,” she says, reaching out to flip over the little print-out poem resting on the table. There’s one at every place-setting, and it makes her want to set the whole thing on fire.

“Bleak,” he comments, raising his brows, which are nearly nonexistent, which should probably be less attractive than it is.

“True,” she says, “it’s all so false. It’s not real life. Shouldn’t a celebration of the union between two people reflect their… union?” He flushes a bit, and she laughs. “Not like that. I just mean Ben and Leslie are certainly not speaking in iambic pentameter to one another every night.”

“You don’t know that,” the Doctor says. “Behind closed doors and all that.”

She rolls her eyes. 

“You’re a singular woman, River Song,” the Doctor says, “one who hates romance.”

“I’m more for quick shags in coat rooms than sappy poems and centerpieces.”

He nearly chokes on his tongue. She just takes a sip of her wine.

“What do you hate most?”

“The dancing,” he says, “we’ve already established I’m an oaf.”

“Pity,” River says, “I was just about to ask you to dance.”

“Pity indeed,” he says. 

He holds her gaze as she finishes off her wine, and she feels a bit of warmth suffuse her, although she’s not sure if it’s him or the wine. Still she’s far less miserable than she was a minute ago, and he’s not half bad to look at, she sits up straight, sets her wine glass down, and smiles at him.

“Well, in that case,” she says, making to stand. “Best just go for the quick shag in the coatroom, hm?”

“ _River_  —”

Whatever else he says is lost on her as she walks away from him, stopping at the bar to slide a bottle of wine off the edge of it. She looks over her shoulder to see him following along after her, face flushed, but smile present. Waving the bottle of wine over her shoulder as she turns away, he catches up to her just as she makes it to the main hall, breath on her ear and hand at the small of her back.

“Come with me to the next boring wedding I have to attend?”

“Maybe,” she says, smiling, “but first you have to earn it.” She glances at either end of the hallway, making sure no one is watching as she turns the knob to the coatroom door.

“I think I can manage that,” he says.

She pauses. “I thought you said you couldn’t dance.”

His lips brush her ear as he says, “there’s dancing and there’s  _dancing_ , River Song.” His hands find her hips, warm and large even though her dress, and she can’t resist a shiver of delight at the low, husky tone of his voice.

“ _Stop_ ,” she says, her voice a smile.

“Make me,” he shoots back, reaching around her to turn the doorknob himself.

“Oh, sweetie,” she says, “I  _will_.”

They stumble into the room laughing, and River’s got a feeling she’s somehow stumbled into a lot more than a coatroom.


End file.
